In 2005, as a twenty-five-year-old with nothing but bartending stints on his resume, Gabe Stulman holed himself up in his apartment and wrote a business plan. He borrowed money from friends and family and opened the Little Owl. With only thirty-two seats, four years later it's still one of the most coveted reservations in Manhattan and among the hardest to score. Next came Market Table. In the spot that formerly held a beloved restaurant with a cult following, he had big shoes to fill. Though a large space in an area where smaller is better, it became a cherished West Village standby. Then Stulman opened Joseph Leonard, a comfy spot with a killer Bloody Mary (recipe below) that, a year into its tenure, has become equally beloved. Now 29, the bearded, sleepy-eyed Stulman has some sort of the magic touch. With two restaurants scheduled to open this fall — a market with a wine and raw bar called Jeffrey's and Fedora, a 1930s-style supper club — Stulman took a breath the other day to talk about what matters most when it comes to running a successful restaurant.

On motivation: "I worked for this couple who built a special place that was really part of the neighborhood. Their kids grew up in front of me. Dad came in and sat the kids on the bar while he did inventory or mom set them on the kitchen counter while she made pizza dough and I thought, They so look happy. I loved what I was doing. I had so much fun taking care of people."

On location: "I've been fortunate to get to work with spaces that are in great corners, have a lot of foot traffic, a diverse demographic, and people that genuinely want to support their neighborhood establishments."

On management: "We're all serving food, we're all serving drinks, we all have tables and chairs and a bar and a kitchen. Really, the science of it is the same. Run your business with integrity and sincerity. At the end of the day, that's what sets people apart."

On history: "My kids will never meet [my grandfathers] Joseph or Leonard, but at the restaurant they'll come in and see their photos on the wall and the memory of them will live on. All the photos there are ancestors of the investors who have passed and so they are all remembered as well. With Jeffrey's [slated to open late September], we've completely restored it to how it was built in the late 1800s. All mahogany with huge storefront windows, transom windows wrapping all the way around, double French doors. My jaw drops every time I see the space. Fedora has operated as a restaurant since the 1950s and I'm already bracing myself for the criticism that I'm going to get. People are going to say, 'It's not like Fedora, Fedora looked nothing like this.' Fedora had a glorious run. The past owners want me to run my restaurant. I'm choosing to keep the name because it's a great name. I'm keeping the bar because it's brilliant, the original bar from 1917. Aside from that, it's now our restaurant. I hope people dig it."

On staff: "I have one skill, which is to always be surrounded by people more talented than I am. The goal we've set out to accomplish is to be a warm place that stands for a while and breaks people's hearts in a positive way. The benefit of working with so many college friends [from Madison, Wisconsin] is that everybody takes pride in our success. They feel a sense of ownership in it, they're responsible for it."

On loving thy neighbor: "I've made a lot of friends in this neighborhood. I am genuinely grateful whenever anybody walks into our restaurant. I am genuinely appreciative of that patronage and try my best to convey that in a sincere manner. There's a lot of positivity here and I can't thank our neighbors enough."

On whether opening a new restaurant ever gets easier: "It's this double-edged sword. When you're connected with places that are perceived as great there are expectations. When you open up another restaurant you get all this, 'It's not as good as his last place.' Who wants that? You can't just open up a restaurant anymore and have fun with it."

On the Bloody Mary: "It's as collaborative a recipe as we have. [Bartender] Brian Bartels made a recipe that I thought was too weak, and by too weak I mean not spicy enough. Then I made a recipe that everybody thought was too spicy. Then [bartender] Daniel Trujillo combined them. Are we the only ones serving a beer chaser? We have to get more people on that. It's a Wisconsin thing."

Mix above ingredients in a quart container or a measuring cup (use only enough tomato juice so that you have 1 quart of ingredients). In a rocks glass, pour one part vodka per two parts mix over ice and garnish with three olives, a lemon, and a lime. One quart of mix makes about 8 servings. Serve with a pilsner in a small juice glass on the side.